| syzygy
The Human Remix, Art in Motion's fifth annual international festival
of time based media was held for a second consecutive year at the Armory
Center for the Arts in Pasadena, California. Last year's AIM festival
was held at the Armory's satellite warehouse which, although quite spacious,
led to an almost chaotic experience of media in all shapes and forms from
elaborate installations to simple computer monitor displays. This year,
however, the festival was held at the armory's main building, which is
much more intimate. AIM was also more selective and included fewer participants.
While this may be due to the physical space available at the armory, the
end result is a highly advanced and sophisticated set of media projects
presented with unexpected and welcomed cohesion; something that is quite
hard to accomplish when presenting new media in a physical space. This
may be because New Media relies on technology that has proven to be most
effective everywhere but in the white cube. It is great to see that this
year's AIM is quite an exception.
The exhibition offers both invited artists installations as well as open
entry projects. The invited artists include Lew
Baldwin, Bryan Jackson, Lev
Manovich, and Bruce
Yonemoto; and the open entry submissions feature works by Mouchette,
Stanza, shauna
frischkorn, Shane Hope, Kit Hung, Eunjung Hwang, Margarete
Jahmann and Max Moswtizer, Dennis H. Miller, Rick
Mullarky, Sterlin Ruby & Kristen Stoltmann, Jennifer Schmidt,
and David Still. (Satellite
events are not listed here.)
Upon entering the gallery space we find Game Boys by Shauna Frischkorn.
This is a series of photographs of young boys staring at a TV monitor
supposedly playing video games. A certain tension develops around these
C-Prints as the viewer may wonder if the boys are actually posing or simply
playing. Right next to these photographs is the entrance to Lew Baldwin's
installation "Duplex", which is actually situated in a separate
temporary room. Here a double video projection is set up as a corner piece;
both projections present a very short loop of a man running through a
tunnel, down a hill, then falling, and turning into a skeleton, then back
to a man ready to keep running once again, suddenly freezing and collapsing
in an open deserted field, while a woman dressed in white and holding
flowers swallows a small moth, (which may actually be a fly). A constant
flickering of colors is also part of the montage. Right outside of this
room to the right is "Monsters of time" by Eunjung Hwang, which
consists of two small monitors presenting playful animations of a pathetic
character, which at times is abused by strangers and at others simply
lonely, and at others making love with another man (who may be his double--not
clear). This wall installation also includes an elaborate illustration
made with projected lights of the animated character. At the center of
this area we have "The Whippoorwill" by Bryan Jackson, consisting
of a giant river catfish made of resin that is semi transparent. Through
its forehead the viewer can see blurred news footage. The giant fish is
also accompanied by 5 or 6 river catfishes (also made of resin) displayed
on a shelf to the right that are almost actual size, all of them with
transparencies of frontline news on their foreheads. On the north wall
of this gallery space we encounter Manovich's "Soft Cinema: Mission
to Earth," which is a digital video projection of a set of files
that are compiled to run in real time according to a script that accesses
metadata, that then places images on the screen accordingly. While the
oral narrative (which is an allegory of the cold war) is always the same,
the actual imagery is different each time it replays, as the script will
run a different sequence of parameters to choose a new set of files, proposing
a different version of the same narrative. Right next to Manovich's piece
we encounter a TV monitor on a cart--"Media Cart" by Shane Hope,
presenting a self-enclosed environment of a set of handcrafted objects
that are also presented on the TV performing random activities. On the
opposite wall we have another projection called "Nybble-Engine"
by Margarete Jahrmann and Max Moswitzer.
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Unfortunately
this project was not working at the time I visited the Armory. As we turn
to the back area of the gallery we enter a room specifically showing four
pieces by Bruce Yonemoto. Upon entering one encounters on the opposing
wall a projection of teenagers walking on the sidewalk in broad daylight,
which is actually projected from the other side of the wall. However,
the teenager's bodies are cut short by a portable screen. On the left
wall, we find a video of a man presented inside a photograph's frame.
Here the man confronts the viewer, then a cut, and he reappears covering
his mouth with his hand; upon removing it, one discovers that he has no
mouth. At the opposite side we have a transparent fiberglass chair, which
on its seat presents a monitor with a close-up of a man's asshole fully
exposed. The chair is placed on top of four sets of black and white Xerox
copies of the man's ass. And, finally, hovering over the entrance, we
find seven TV monitors displayed on a long shelf presenting different
loops of a blue sky overseeing a landscape. Leaving Yonemoto's room, we
find a long hallway where four videos are screened one at a time, throughout
the day. One of them is "couples" by Sterling Ruby and Kirsten
Stoltman; where a man takes care of a woman's every need; he picks her
up and places her on a chair, then dresses her, then picks her up and
takes her to dining table, then to her personal working space where she
writes on her laptop while he brings her coffee, and so on. One wonders
if this is productive at all as they seem codependent on many levels beyond
the physical activities. Walking to the right, we encounter another room
painted black where twelve TVs on small pedestals present Marsia Alexander
Clark's "Ut Coelum" a music composition carefully orchestrated
with different grid patterns of women's faces, who are singing, although
at times they appear to be in a state of panic. The images are presented
in different color patterns, while the music takes over the room. The
twelve monitors present video compositions according to the intensity
of the music, changing the patterns starting from the monitors on the
outside to the center. And finally as we turn full circle, we find a set
of imacs, where all of the net art projects can be experienced. Ironically,
there was no internet connection during my visit, but hey! I have the
catalog and would always rather experience this section of the exhibit
at home.
As it becomes obvious, the projects mainly explore video and film language.
However, one thing that the exhibit pulls off that I did not think AIM
was able to do in the past is an emphasis on content that goes beyond
technical innovation. Story telling is presented as an important aspect--even
during a time when database logic may be redefining how to tell a story.
This of course is an obvious case here because time based media has always
relied on narrative strategies. Manovich's Soft Cinema may be the most
obvious example of this, as his work uses files at random to tell the
same story. While the projects are interesting for their advancement of
video and film language, their forte lies in the fact that the projects
in the end are interesting works, regardless of what form is being used
to disseminate the idea. However, unlike a more conceptual show, AIM exposes
a nice balance between content and form that is rarely found in most media
exhibitions.
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